Energy

Expert elicitations are now frequently used to characterize uncertain future technology outcomes. However, their usefulness is limited, in part because: estimates across studies are not easily comparable; choices in survey design and expert selection may bias results; and overconfidence is a persistent problem. The authors provide quantitative evidence of how these choices affect experts' estimates.

Many energy consumers, and even analysts and policymakers, confront and frame energy and climate risks in a moral vacuum, rarely incorporating broader social justice concerns. Here, to remedy this gap, we investigate how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making by reframing five energy problems — nuclear waste, involuntary resettlement, energy pollution, energy poverty and climate change — as pressing justice concerns.

In order to make R&D funding decisions to meet particular goals, such as mitigating climate change or improving energy security, or to estimate the social returns to R&D, policy makers need to combine the information provided in this study on cost reduction potentials with an analysis of the macroeconomic implications of these technological changes. The authors conclude with recommendations for future directions on energy expert elicitations.

Professor Meghan O'Sullivan was interviewed on November 15th, 2015 for a Wall Street Journal special section on energy, discussing the rapid transformation of the American energy sector in light of low fuel prices, new climate policies and other factors.

On 22 November 2013, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the latest version of mandatory cybersecurity regulations for the bulk electric system—known as Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Reliability Standards. The CIP standards are relatively unique: they are developed through an unusual model of industry-led regulation that places industry, and not federal regulators, at the center of regulatory design and enforcement. The CIP regulations have received a significant amount of criticism. Critics argue that the regulations are incomplete at best and irreparably flawed at worst. The author examines the lessons we can learn from the CIP standards and poses a provocative question: Are the regulations actually a secret success?

Providing societies with reliable energy services, fighting energy poverty and mitigating climate change entail a crucial infrastructure component. Both the energy access and the low carbon challenge require more decentralized energy solutions and a change in the energy infrastructure paradigm. Yet, physical energy infrastructure co-evolves with socio-economic institutions, actors and social norms. This may produce inertia against change. The energy challenge also requires solutions at multiple scales and may entail elements of common pool resource problems. Therefore, the governance of energy infrastructure needs to be polycentric. This allows for contextualization, experimentation and innovation. The article concludes by sketching routes of further research into the energy infrastructure governance nexus in social science research.

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is among the cornerstone policies created to increase U.S. energy independence by using biofuels. Although greenhouse gas emissions have played a role in shaping the RFS, water implications are less understood. We demonstrate a spatial, life cycle approach to estimate water consumption of transportation fuel scenarios, including a comparison to current water withdrawals and drought incidence by state. The water consumption and land footprint of six scenarios are compared to the RFS, including shale oil, coal-to-liquids, shale gas-to-liquids, corn ethanol, and cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass.

"Acting on Time on Energy" conference, held at Harvard on 18–19 September 2008, brought together business leaders, investors, academics and government officials, to discuss energy pollcy for the next U.S. Administration. Click here for photos.

As the Biofuel industry surges with investments and new entrepreneurial players, Kennedy School scholars are analyzing it working to develop new ways to create carbon-neutral fuels. Madeline Drexler writes on the Kennedy School's input on this emerging new way to lower greenhouse gas emissions and become less dependent on non-renewable energy resources.